An influential Saudi former military commander on making common cause with Israel and warming toward Russia as the U.S. backs away.

By SOHRAB AHMARI
Aug. 21, 2015 6:45 p.m. ET

Prague

President Obama knew how to soothe Arab nerves rankled by his nuclear diplomacy with Iran. In May he convened a Camp David summit with the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council. The only problem: Of six GCC heads of state, only two showed up. The most powerful and influential, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, wasn’t among the attendees.

The snub was a rare public expression of the kingdom’s anger at Mr. Obama. Behind Riyadh’s ire is the sense that, in its pursuit of a nuclear accommodation with Tehran, America is tilting away from its traditional Middle East allies and toward Iran’s ayatollahs. For these Arab states, the new Washington dispensation means forging security arrangements that a few years ago would have seemed unthinkable. Perhaps the most astonishing of these developments is the nascent alliance between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Anwar Eshki, a retired major general in the Saudi armed forces, has spearheaded Riyadh’s outreach to Jerusalem. He made history in June when he appeared on a panel in Washington, D.C., with Dore Gold, the newly appointed director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry. At that event, Gen. Eshki outlined a vision for the Middle East that included Arab-Israeli peace, regime change in Tehran, democracy in the Arab world and the creation of a Kurdish state. And while Gen. Eshki says his outreach to the Israelis is a purely private enterprise, it hasn’t been interpreted that way in the region, in large part because he is a prominent and well-connected figure in the Saudi security establishment.

I sat down for an interview with Gen. Eshki Wednesday evening at the Prague Marriott, where he was attending a security conference.

“I believe this is a good deal, but—” he says, referring to the nuclear deal with Iran, then veering into what sounds like a carefully neutral discussion of the debate over the agreement in the U.S. A military man with a subtle and disciplined mind, he never explicitly criticizes the nuclear talks or the White House, toeing his government’s public line of tepid, conditional support for the accord. He goes so far as to dissociate himself from the anti-deal views of his one-time boss, former intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, whom the general served as a national-security adviser when the prince was Saudi ambassador to the U.S. in the 1980s.

And yet the key is to unpack that “but.”

Throughout the talks, Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif “agreed on many things,” Gen. Eshki says. “That surprised Russia, and it surprised many others.” The general also was surprised by Mr. Kerry: “He supported the Iranians!” Mr. Kerry and his boss were willing to see things Iran’s way, Gen. Eshki says, because they believe that putative moderates like Mr. Zarif can outmaneuver hard-liners like Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his Revolutionary Guards.

Does Gen. Eshki share that view? “I believe Iran will not change its mind as long as that regime is in power in Tehran,” he says. “Iran does many things that are not good. They want to revive the Persian Empire. And also they want to dominate the Middle East through destabilization.” Saudi Arabia is as vulnerable as Israel to such designs, if not more so, and it was the common Iranian threat that brought the general and Mr. Gold into a yearlong strategic dialogue that culminated in the Washington meeting.

“The main project between me and Dore Gold is to bring peace between Arab countries and Israel,” he says. “This is personal, but my government knows about the project. My government isn’t against it, because we need peace. For that reason, I found Dore Gold. He likes his country. I like my country. We need to profit from each other.” Jerusalem and Riyadh, he says, are two powers that “don’t want trouble in the region.”

Initially, the focus was on the Palestinian question. “We didn’t talk much about Iran at first,” Gen. Eshki recalls, “but I found that our idea and their idea was close together against Iran. We don’t like Iran to destabilize the area. We don’t like for Iran to attack Israel and destroy Israel. And we also don’t like for Israel to attack Iran and destroy Iran. This is my idea. He has another idea. But we are together.”

For Israel, the immediate Iranian-caused headache is Hezbollah, the Lebanese-Shiite terror outfit that points tens of thousands of missiles at the Jewish state. Gen. Eshki recalls once asking Mr. Gold, “ ‘When you attack Hezbollah, does Iran interfere?’ He answered, ‘No.’ ” A follow-up: “If you attack Iran, will Hezbollah support Iran?” The Israeli answered: “Yes.” Gen. Eshki’s conclusion: “Israel is thinking first of all to destroy Hezbollah, to solve the problem with Hezbollah. After that they can attack Iran.”

For the Saudis, the Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen poses the immediate threat. Situated at the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen is a strategic gateway to Africa and a perennial target of Iranian meddling and al Qaeda terrorism. Gen. Eshki worked closely on Yemen issues during the 18 years he spent as a national-security adviser to the kingdom’s Council of Ministers following his stint in Washington. “I know exactly the Yemeni people, tribes and the situation,” he says. “Yemen is a central challenge for Saudi Arabia in the future.”

When the Houthis overran Yemen in the spring, Riyadh finally took action, launching a joint Arab campaign with short notice to Washington. Known as Decisive Storm, the campaign has, in fits and starts, punished and pushed back Tehran’s proxies on the kingdom’s doorstep. “Now the Storm in Yemen gave a lesson to Hezbollah and all the other [proxies] of Iran that Iran is a paper tiger,” Gen. Eshki says. “They couldn’t support the Houthis in Yemen. They couldn’t bring one plane to Yemen. For that reason, the Houthis now are talking bad against Iran on social media.”

The Islamic Republic’s imperial ambitions in the region will ultimately sound its own death knell, the general thinks. “I told the Iranians when I was there,” Gen. Eshki says. “I told [Deputy Foreign Minister Amir Hossein] Abdollahian: ‘Iran will destroy itself. If you try to revive empire, many other nationalities will ask for independence, like Azeris, like Arabs, like Turkmen, like the Baluch, like the Kurds.’ ” In other words, two can play at Tehran’s game of riling up ethnic and sectarian minorities.

Riyadh isn’t limiting itself to Jerusalem in courting potential new friends. He suggests that a thaw in the kingdom’s relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia is under way following the rupture caused by Moscow’s sharp support for its clients, Tehran and the Assad regime, in the Syrian civil war. Riyadh and the Kremlin may now work together to stabilize Syria.

“We have to concentrate to solve the problem” in Syria, the general says. “But we don’t like Assad to stay. Because the people in Syria don’t want him to stay.” He notes that Saudi King Abdullah, who died in January, “at the beginning of the revolution called on Assad six times to solve the problem quickly: ‘Don’t kill your people. Don’t ally yourself with Iran. We need Syria united and independent.’ At the end of that, President Assad said: ‘The situation is not under my control.’ That means: Iran has much influence over him.”

Now the Kremlin is gradually coming around to Riyadh’s view of the conflict. “Russia is a great country,” he says, “but they don’t like to change their promises” to allies—in contrast to you-know-who. “Russia supported by weapons Iran and Assad in the civil war in Syria. But now Russia believes, has been convinced, that they are not in the right path. Saudi Arabia needs Russia in the Middle East, not to destabilize countries but to be a friend.”

A political solution would preserve the Syrian state apparatus while replacing the regime sitting atop it. “We don’t like that regime,” Gen. Eshki says. “There’s difference between the system and the regime. When the United States came to Iraq, they destroyed the system, and the problems ensued. We have to maintain the system but remove the regime.” He believes stabilizing the region will require a “Marshall-style project to rebuild” Syria and Yemen, a cause he personally promotes.

Such a project is the only permanent antidote to the Islamist extremism of groups like Islamic State. Using the Arabic term for the group, Daesh, the general says that its terrorism wouldn’t be possible in a country “if that country is not destabilized, if it has equity. When Syria became destabilized, Daesh came to Syria. When the government in Iraq had so much corruption and pushed the Sunni out, Daesh came to Iraq quickly. If Iraq became stabilized and strong, Daesh wouldn’t be in Iraq or in Syria.”

And contrary to fashion, Gen. Eshki still talks about democratizing the Middle East. “We have in the Gulf many problems,” he says. “We need more reform. We need more democracy in that place,” albeit democracy inflected by Islamic law. “We can’t conquer the terrorists just with weapons and security acts, but also by justice inside of the country.” He even imagines a federal future for the Arab states of the Persian Gulf region inspired by the U.S. Constitution.

He adds: “I believe Daesh will like Pac Man eat all the terrorists until it becomes one big terrorist. Then we can destroy them.”

The U.S. doesn’t figure much in the moral and strategic map Gen. Eshki paints of the region. Yes, America and Saudi Arabia are still strong allies, he says, but “the United States is trying to move from the Middle East to the Far East and the Pacific Ocean. The United States doesn’t like anymore to be involved in the Middle East, but to support the Middle East.” That may be preferable to many American voters, but it comes at the price of a diminished capacity to shape events and outcomes. Little equity, little say.

So how would the birth of a nuclear-armed Iranian theocracy affect Saudi Arabia’s new strategic path? Gen. Eshki doesn’t seem worried, but others might be: “If Iran tries to make that atomic bomb, we would do that also.”

Criticism of the agreement is mounting, although Paris still prefers for now to shoot from the sidelines.

By JOHN VINOCUR

Aug. 24, 2015 2:03 p.m. ET

French President François Hollande ran into a difficult question late last month about war and Iran. It’s time now to pay attention to his answer.

Invited to dinner by members of the French Presidential Press Association on July 27, the president was asked if he went along with the contention of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, later voiced by President Barack Obama, that war would inevitably follow rejection by the U.S. Congress of the nuclear deal between the great powers and Iran.

Mr. Hollande, whose full-page photo on a French magazine cover this week is headlined The Anesthetist, doesn’t do alarmisme. He didn’t assert, as Mr. Obama so often has, that war is the single alternative to the Iran nuclear agreement. No way.

My recollection of Mr. Hollande’s response—jibing with that of the journalists seated to my left and right that evening—is that he said disapproval by Congress meant new “uncertainty,” and uncertainty in the Middle East could sometimes mean war.

A month later, this much is clear about the approach of the other European parties to the deal: Neither German Chancellor Angela Merkel nor U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron have made an explicit link between Congress’s possible September vote against the agreement and anything resembling the Obama administration’s notions of instant cataclysm.

After initially nodding “yes” to the deal, the French have partially reverted to form reflecting their traditional hard-nosed antinuclear proliferation position. It’s OK in Paris to acknowledge that the accord is an oversold mediocrity, and its character nonhistoric. Mr. Obama’s notions of co-opting a suddenly tranquilized Iran to embrace the Forces of Good in the Middle East can get characterized as naive. American sanctions experts say big French banks have informed them they are in no rush to return to Iran.

Citing the profound weaknesses of an agreement that allows controls over Iran to end after 15 years and the mullahs to keep an absurdly high number of centrifuges, a French official told me he graded the accord as C-plus. He expressed concern about America’s willingness over time to continue paying the enormous expense of its vast Iranian surveillance operations. And he also said that the deal’s concessions to Tehran made a pressing reality of Saudi Arabia’s quest for an atomic weapon.

One of the toughest of the country’s hard-nosed security experts, Bruno Tertrais, wrote last month in the Canadian newspaper Le Devoir that “with pressure from the Obama administration” European negotiators’ original intent deteriorated from a rollback of Iran’s nuclear ambitions to their containment.

Camille Grand, director of the Foundation for Strategic Research—a think tank with a reputation for telling truths the French government might prefer to avoid—told me how this slippage had come about. “From 2013 on,” he said, “the Americans gave the impression they wanted the deal more than Iran did. The administration put more pressure on its friends in the negotiations than on the Iranians.”

As for Mr. Obama’s expectations of finding a pliable Iran, Mr. Grand saw instead the greater possibility of the mullahs asserting Iran’s leadership of radical Islam.

“Mr. Obama’s domino theory involves an Iran of compromise, and that’s the mirror image of the Bush administration’s naive idea of bringing democracy to the Middle East through a war in Iraq,” he said. “The reality of the region now is that Iran has more influence in Iraq than the United States, and more influence in Syria than Russia.”

For now, even if there are French critics, there is no political or governmental force actively fighting the deal. It creates the impression of a French security establishment that will shoot from the cover of the sidelines, yet isn’t mobilized to urge that the agreement be renegotiated.

But shooting from the sidelines can still have an effect. Consider the recent ado about reports that Jacques Audibert, Mr. Hollande’s national security adviser, told a U.S. congressional delegation to Paris in July that France, while supporting the deal overall, would view a move by Congress to block the deal as manageable without causing a break between the U.S. and Europe. Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a Democrat, described the conversation later. Although the French denied her account, her colleagues on the delegation affirmed it—and why would she concoct a story so inconvenient to a president of her party anyway?

So how come France didn’t lie across the tracks to block the accord? My explanation:

Because an economically nonperforming President Hollande couldn’t say “no” to French industry wanting a shot at new Iranian contracts. Because France no longer musters the international political levers to shoulder splendid isolation. And because it would not assume the cost of being regarded as Benjamin Netanyahu’s single objective ally.

And now, French buyer’s remorse? In theory, a bit. But not enough to try holding off on its own what France knows is a lousy Iran nuclear deal.

Mr. Vinocur is former executive editor of the International Herald Tribune.

Egyptian Blogger And Political Commentator Nervana Mahmoud: 'Iran Deal: A Potential Kiss Of Death For Liberalism In The Middle East'

In a July 19, 2015 article on Al-Ahram's English-language website titled "Iran Deal: A Potential Kiss of Death for Liberalism in the Middle East,"[1]Egyptian blogger and political commentator Nervana Mahmoud criticized the claim made, inter alia, by U.S. President Barack Obama and others in his administration, that the nuclear deal with Iran will strengthen moderate elements in that country.[2] Rather than promote liberals, she writes, the deal will only vindicate Iran's current theocratic leadership by ending Iran's isolation. It will also, she stresses, send a message to other authoritarian regimes in the region that the U.S. is likely to overlook their crackdown on dissidents, while encouraging Islamist movements to emulate Iran by embracing extremism.
Ms. Mahmoud goes on to accuse the Obama administration of promoting "illiberalism" by defining as moderate "any group, entity, or state willing to show pragmatism and cooperation with the United States, regardless of that state's intolerant actions on the ground."

The following are excerpts from her article:

"For The Iranian Mullahs, The Nuclear Deal Is An Indirect Acknowledgment From The West That Their Anti-Modernity Model Is Viable And Successful"

"After 12 years of diplomatic proposals and 20 months of tough negotiations, theocratic Iran and world powers have reached a nuclear deal that, regardless of its potential advantages, is undoubtedly a victory for smart illiberalism and a potential kiss of death for the prospect of liberal, pluralistic democracies in the Middle East.

"Both illiberal Shi'a and Sunni Islamists and illiberal non-Islamist autocrats could receive an enormous boost from the deal.

"A few years ago, against all advice, I visited the Islamic Republic of Iran. To my surprise, I found a vibrant nation, with many liberal youth yearning for freedom and democracy. Those youth may now celebrate the lifting of sanctions and the end of isolation, but it is doubtful the nuclear deal will bridge the deep divide between them and their theocratic rulers.
"For the Iranian Mullahs, the nuclear deal is an indirect acknowledgment from the West that their anti-modernity model is viable and successful. U.S. President Barack Obama may be genuine in his hopes that Iran will abandon its 'path of violence and rigid ideology' following this 'historic agreement,' but his hopes may turn out to be no more than wishful thinking.

"The regime – now less isolated–has less incentive to couple its agreed abandonment of its nuclear program with an abandonment of what it sees as successful ideology than ever before."Many commentators have pointed out that the deal could not have come at a worse time for the Arab world. With open sectarian tension in many Arab countries, a strong Islamic Iran will only inspire other political Islamic groups to try to match up to the Mullahs.

"Iran’s regional influence in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen will only prompt a counter-movement by forces that share an underlying belief in Islamism, but differ in its sectarian interpretation. Since 1979, Sunni Islamism has learned one important lesson from Iran: 'Yes, we can' -– a slogan the Islamists touted quietly, long before Obama uttered those words in 2008.

"Arab Islamists saw theocratic Iran as a perfect model for fulfilling their dream of ruling Muslim societies. The new nuclear deal will add two more lessons, and liberal democracy is not one of them-- defiance and lobbying in Washington…

"Last Saturday, Ahrar Al-Sham, an Islamist Sunni insurgent group fighting in Syria, published an article in the Washington Post claiming to believe in 'a moderate future for Syria.' Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at Brookings, scrutinized their claim: 'Ahrar Al-Sham has been one of the most consistent military allies of Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Al-Nusra.' The publication of the article in itself indicates how some people in the corridors of power in Washington are willing to buy Ahrar’s narrative.

"The implication for Syria could not be more serious. Syria will continue to be torn between two mutually exclusive Sunni versus Shi'a forces; many of them are radical, ruthless, and undemocratic. Somehow, the Obama administration seems to see no problem in embracing both...'However, tacitly embracing radical Shi'a militias’ fight against radical Sunni groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS), while pretending that other radicals such as Ahrar Al-Sham are moderate, does not seem to be a sound strategy."
"It Is Dangerous For The U.S. To Empower Illiberalism In A Region That Suffers Mainly As A Consequence Of Its Illiberal Players"

"In Egypt, neither the removal of Hosni Mubarak nor the ousting of Muhammad Mursi has produced a liberal democracy. Moreover, a significant section of the Muslim Brotherhood, despite its antipathy to Shia Islamism, has started to view the Iranian model as the way forward to regain power.

"They wrongly attribute their failure to run the country during Morsi’s tenure to what they describe as their 'reluctance to embrace revolutionary politics.' The Mullahs' violent ejection of their opponents in 1979 is seen as 'a model.' In addition, the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters will continue to lobby in Washington, hoping that its projection of an Iranian–style defiance will convince the Obama Administration to exert pressure on the leadership in Cairo to change its posture toward the group.

"On the other hand, many among President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s supporters will use Iran as a pretext to justify more crackdown on opponents, and argue that world powers, which are willing to lift sanctions against the Iranian regime, despite 36 years of ruthless rule, have no moral ground on which to judge Egypt.

"In his speech in Cairo in 2009, President Obama advocated tolerance, respect for minorities, and religious freedom. He also said elections alone do not constitute a true democracy.

"Now, as Hisham Melhem, Bureau Chief of the Al Arabiya News Channel in Washington, has pointed out, 'after almost six and a half years of trying to shape events in the Middle East, President Obama has very little to show for it except the nuclear deal with Iran.' More alarmingly, the American president seems to have lowered the bar, and is now willing to accept a softer definition of moderation to include any group, entity, or state willing to show pragmatism and cooperation with the United States, regardless of that state’s intolerant actions on the ground.'

"There are intrinsic reasons behind the metastasizing sectarian and ethnic conflicts that followed the failed Arab awakening. It is unreasonable to expect the United States to 'fix' the region; however, it is dangerous for the U.S. to empower illiberalism in a region that suffers mainly as a consequence of its illiberal players. It would be a pity if President Obama went down in the history books as the man who fumbled with the West’s anti-illiberalism alarm button, and embraced the enemies of liberalism in the Middle East."

Endnotes:
[1] English.ahram.org.eg, July 19, 2015.
[2] See for example Obama's interviews in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (Aawsat.net, ,May13, 2015) and with National Public Radio (Npr.org, April 7, 2015).

Not that you would have noticed by reading the news or tuning in to State Department or White House briefings. It’s too embarrassing to an administration that has invested all of its diplomatic capital in the deal. Also, too inconvenient to the commodity investors, second-tier banks, European multinationals and everyone else who wants a piece of the Iranian market and couldn’t care less whether Tehran honors its nuclear bargain.

Yet here we are. Iran is testing the agreement, reinterpreting it, tearing it up line by line. For the U.S.—or at least our next president—the lesson should be clear: When you sign a garbage agreement, you get a garbage outcome.

Earlier this month Iran test-fired a new-generation ballistic missile, called Emad, with an estimated 1,000-mile range and a 1,600-pound payload. Its only practical military use is to deliver a nuclear warhead. The test was a bald violation of the Security Council’s Resolution 2231, adopted unanimously in July, in which “Iran is called upon not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons” for at least eight years.

Then Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei weighed in on the nuclear deal by way of a public letter to President Hassan Rouhani. “The behavior and words of the U.S. government in the nuclear issue and its prolonged and boring negotiations,” he wrote, “showed that [the nuclear issue] was also another link in their chain of hostile enmity with the Islamic Republic.”

The Supreme Leader’s comments on the nuclear deal have been billed by some reporters as a cautious endorsement of the agreement. Not exactly. They are a unilateral renegotiation of the entire deal, stipulating that the U.S. and everyone else must accept his rewrite—or else.

The best analysis of Mr. Khamenei’s demands comes from Yigal Carmon and Ayelet Savyon of the Middle East Media Research Institute. Demand One: The U.S. and Europe must completely lift, rather than temporarily suspend, their economic sanctions, putting an end to any possibility that penalties could “snap back” in the event of Iran’s noncompliance. Demand Two: Sanctions against Iran for its support of terrorism and its human-rights abuses must also go, never mind the Obama administration’s insistence that it will continue to punish Iran for its behavior.

Next Mr. Khamenei changes the timetable for Iran to ship out its enriched uranium and modify its plutonium reactor in Arak until the International Atomic Energy Agency gives Iran a pass on all “past and future issues (including the so-called Possible Military Dimensions or PMD of Iran’s nuclear program).” So much for the U.N. nuclear watchdog even pretending to monitor Iran’s compliance with the deal. He also reiterates his call for a huge R&D effort so that Iran will have at least 190,000 centrifuges when the nuclear deal expires.

“The set of conditions laid out by Khamenei,” Mr. Carmon and Ms. Savyon note in their analysis, “creates a situation in which not only does the Iranian side refrain from approving the JCPOA, but, with nearly every point, creates a separate obstacle, such that executing the agreement is not possible.”

That’s right, though it doesn’t mean Mr. Khamenei intends to stop negotiating. Instead, like in some diplomatic version of Lord Beaverbrook’s indecent proposal—“Madam, we have established what you are; now we’re just haggling over the price”—Mr. Khamenei has discovered what the administration is. Now he wants to pocket the concessions he has already gained and wheedle for a bit more.

Little wonder that Iran has upped the contempt factor since the agreement was signed. A day after the missile test, Iran convicted Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian. On Monday came reports that Iran may have arrested an Iranian-American businessman in Tehran. Expect similarly brutish insults in the months ahead, all to underline how little Mr. Khamenei thinks of the American president and his outstretched hand.

As for the administration, it would be nice to imagine that it is starting to sense the Ayatollah’s disdain. But it isn’t. The missile test was met by a wan effort to take “appropriate action” at the U.N., whatever that might be. Mr. Khamenei’s letter has been met with almost complete silence, as if ignoring it will make it go away.

Perhaps none of this matters. For all the promises and warnings about the Iran deal, it is nothing more than surrender dressed up as diplomacy. The correlation of forces in the Middle East has shifted in the past year, and Mr. Obama will not lift a finger to restore the balance. Mr. Khamenei knows this, and he is not about to give the U.S. a dignified surrender. Then maybe Mr. Obama knows it, too. He doesn’t seem to mind the ignominy.